Q2) How does your media product represent particular social groups The magazine I have created represents

my specific social group of pop rock through the use of mise-en- scene. This includes factors such as costumes, body language, facial expressions, props and the tone of the magazine article. The demographics of my social group is ABC1 with the primary audience being male from the ages group of 20-34. Costumes For the majority of my photos of my magazine, the model is shown to be wearing a black leather jacket and a white blouse. The dark and dull colours of the leather jacket follow connotations of rock as the colour black is heavily portrayed within this genre of music. This style of clothing may also reflect the clothing of my target audience as they may aspire to dress in this manner. For example, as the audience of my magazine are from the age group of 20-34 they will perhaps not be as familiar with all the latest fashion trends in comparison to a 17 year old girl who is currently still at school as she will perhaps feel persuaded to dress a certain way due to peer pressure. Furthermore, the light blonde colour of my models hair followed by her bright blue eyes helps compliment the dark clothing, instantly catching the audiences attention. For the double page spread, my model is shown to be wearing a green dress followed by black tights and green shoes. Again, I decided on plain, dark colours to reinforce the rock genre. Props The main prop I used within my magazine was an electric guitar to emphasise my cover artists passion for pop/rock music. I decided to use this prop on my double page spread to convey my model as an aspiring artist for my social group as she is conveyed to be performing live on stage at a one of her gigs. The prop is significant as it represents my social group as sociable and outgoing who like to attend gigs and concerts to see their favourite artists and bands perform. The prop also signifies that my magazine is quite heavy as an electric guitar is stereotypically associated with the genre of rock whereas an acoustic guitar follows connotations of indie music. I also used a microphone within my first photo-shoot to clarify to the audience that my magazine is a music magazine. Body language The use of body language also plays an important role in the representation of my social group as the audience can visualise with the model. For the front cover of my magazine, I decided to position my model in front of the camera from a close up to engage the reader in and make the magazine look more appealing to buy. The model is shown to act in quite a seductive manner as she is positioned to have her finger by her lip to appeal to primary audience of men aged 20-34. Her use of body language suits my social group as she is conveyed to be quite crazy and eccentric as she doesnt care what anybody thinks, this also appeals to the genre of pop/rock as artists associated within this genre are perceived to be quite reckless. Moreover, this could also metaphorically refer to her love for music as the act of lip biting connotes feelings of seduction and passion. Facial expressions

The model in my magazine is shown to have a very serious facial expression as she does not smile towards the camera. This is seen as a typical convention of pop rock magazines as the artists are generally presented to be quite fierce and stern. The use of direct eye contact is important as it draws the readers attention and allows them to feel a person connection with the artist. I chose this specific model to star in my magazine as I believe her blonde hair and blue eyes which contrast with her pale skin help reflect the models beauty, reinforcing the male gender of the audience for my magazine. I decided to pick a white English model over other races as they are stereotypically presented on the cover of magazines whereas Black African models are seen to be not as popular in the magazine market. Furthermore, there are a larger percentage of White English artists in the music industry which concludes why I choose this specific model to cover for my magazine. Lexis The magazine article includes language from the typical lexical field of music to emphasise the theme of my magazine and to appeal to the social group that listen to pop rock music. The idiolect used is formal and conversational to appeal to my target audience as it would be highly inappropriate to include taboo language as my magazine is suited towards mature adults who would perhaps find this type of language rude and offensive. I have also included descriptive language to interest the reader and make them want to read on more. Social Media At the bottom of the page on my contents page I have included web addresses for the following social media websites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. I decided to include these select four as after looking at the results from my audience feedback survey I found these few to be the most popular. I also included social media at the bottom of both articles to engage the reader and make them feel part of my magazine. Moreover, the specific audience for my magazine have access to the internet and use social media within their free time. Having social media websites listed across my magazine will help encourage my readers to go online and follow the selected pages to find out more information and exclusive gossip.

Q3) What kind of institute might distribute your media product and why? The institution company that I have chosen to distribute my magazine is IPC media. I believe this company is most appropriate for the distribution of my music magazine as they are regarded to be one of the main leading media institutions in the UK, with an estimated 26 million adults per year in the UK reading magazines published by this particular company. IPC Media are also well known to be the distributors of a diverse selection of different magazines ranging from fashion to beauty and sports and lifestyle to music. These include female magazines such as Marie Claire and Now as well as male magazines such as Shooting Times and Mbr. The company also have previous experience with other music magazines similar to my genre such as NME and Uncut which I believe will help benefit my magazine as they already have a specific target audience who read these magazines that fit within the particular social group of my magazine. Although my magazine is similar to the music magazines they already publish, NME is published weekly whereas the frequency of my music

magazine is monthly. This will help to create a diverse between the different magazines they distribute. I had previously stated in my proposal that the selected company I wanted for the institution of my magazine was Baeuer Media Group, however after completing some research I found this to not be a good ideas as they already publish widespread music magazines which would result in them providing less attention towards my magazine. Furthermore, I decided to not go with other institution companies such as Baeuer Media Group or Hearst due to the reason that they already publish successful magazine such as Q and Kerrang which relate to my genre of magazine pop/rock. Moreover, my magazine is centred on these particular magazines resulting in them to be too similar to my own. Hearst would also be unsuitable for the distribution of my magazine as their magazines are primarily designed for a female target audience, whereas the majority of my target audience are male. Overall, I believe IPC is the best choice as distributors want to create a variety in their products to entertain their readers and I believe my magazine TMM will help to succeed this. I decided not to choose the small, independent publishing company Development Hell Limited as the company mainly target their magazines towards a small audience only focusing on music and clubbing. This would be irreverent for my target audience as they do not follow the same interests and prefer to go watch live concerts and gigs of their favourite artists. Furthermore, they also own DontStayIn.com, the world's biggest clubbing social network. Although this shows that they are a very successful magazine publisher I believe this company would not suit my target audience. I therefore believe that IPC Media would be the best decision. Moreover, I feel the intuition of IPC Media will help me to appeal to my target audience. After looking at the companys website I found a section called Audience list that include all the types of people they market their magazines towards. I found the section Young Men to be most appropriate as the company describe the perfect young male audience: The guy whose uniform includes woven shirts, narrow ties and vintage-style accessories. Whos downloaded Arctic Monkeys to his iPod and Lucy Pinder to his phone. The description of their young male audience is similar to the demographics of my target audience - men aged between 20-34 and from the demographic group of ABC1. Finally, I have chosen to use the institution company IPC as my main distributor as I believe they will be able to help promote my magazine through a selection of different platforms. I will produce printed versions of my magazine and sell them to various different popular retail shops including WHSmiths. I believe this method will benefit my target audience as they are portrayed to be more mature adults, meaning they will have the money to spend on print magazines. I will also distribute my magazine to big chain supermarkets such as Tescos and Morrisons as they are becoming increasing popular in the magazine industry. In addition, I will also use a selection of new media and technology to help my magazine succeed. I believe new media is important in the distribution of my magazine as social networking sites are becoming increasingly popular and they give readers the chance to find out the latest updates and information quicker than having to wait for the next magazine. I will create public pages on Facebook and Twitter as well post advertisements online to influence readers to start interacting with my magazine and to give them exclusive, un-seen news and information. I will also publish an online version of my magazine on the TMM website to give readers the opportunity to access my magazine through the internet. I believe this help me appeal

to a wider audience as the internet is accessible to people from all over the world creating a greater market for my magazine. Moreover, I will include traditional methods such as TV and radio to make the audience feel more involved and connected with my magazine. The company, IPC already promote NME magazine which has their own radio station and award ceremony which conveys the companys experience in the music industry. Through the method of radio, I will give listeners the chance to win free tickets and prizes as well as the chance to be aired on show. I believe using IPC media as the distribution of my magazine will help me to make my magazine an international success.

Q4) Who would be the audience for your media product? Age The most important factor I took in to consideration when designing my magazine was the age group for my target audience. I decided to direct my magazine at men and women from the specific age group of 20-34 as I believe an older audience will be more interested in the music genre of my magazine pop/rock. Furthermore, the target audience will typically be working all day and will therefore want to read a magazine that is relaxing and interesting to save them from the stress of work. The pictures displayed throughout my magazine are conveyed to be very serious to suit my older target audience. The model displayed in my images is shown to not be smiling which plays a main role in my magazine as children magazines stereotypically include images of children laughing e.g. Top of the Pops to reinforce the young age group. The language in my magazine is very formal and sophisticated to suit the older age category as young adults would not expect to read a magazine that includes informal, taboo language as they would perhaps find this rude and offensive. On the other hand, I also included descriptive language to make my article interesting and captivating to read to make the reader want to continue on reading. Gender The gender of my audience also played a significant role in the design of my magazine. I decided to primarily target my magazine towards both genders but alike Q magazine the majority of my audience is male with a small percentage female. The genre of rock is typically associated with males however females still like to listen to this genre of music and will therefore want to read my magazine. As my magazine is aimed at both genders I included a colour scheme of red, white and black as these colours are associated with men and women. The vague colour scheme relates to the genre of pop rock as black follows connotations of death, mystery and rock. Furthermore, magazines from the same genre including Kerrang! and Q magazine involve the colour black in their house style. The images displayed on my contents page include a variation of different poses and stances from both genres to depict the dual gender target audience. Social class The audience of my magazine come from the social class of ABC1. The typical individual of this audience would be a young adult who is working full time and has an appropriate income which they can afford to spend their money on my monthly music magazine. As they will be the working full time they will also have money to purchase concert tickets to watch their favourite artist or band perform. Moreover, the audience of my magazine will be quite well educated as they would have

already finished school and University. This would mean they would have a greater understanding on the music industry than young teenagers who are currently still at school or college. Psychographics The psychographics of my magazine will apply to an audience who like to keep up with exclusive gossip on various different music artists as well as lovers of concerts and gigs that enjoy watching their favourite artists and bands perform. The target audience for my magazine fit within the category of mainstreamers and succeeders as they do not like to stand out from the crowd and look for luxury and comfort which they can afford. I believe the category of mainstreamers is successful for my magazine as 40% of people from this particular group make up the total of consumers for magazines. Furthermore, they prefer to mingle with the crowd which is conveyed through the use of magazine choice as they are selecting a magazine that other people will also want to read. The group succeeders links to my target audience as they are classed to be mature adults who work full time and have the money to spend on monthly music magazines as well as tickets to concerts and gigs. Social habits The typical reader of TMM magazine would be someone who likes listening and singing to songs from the genre of pop rock music and overall has a big passion for music. The audience will have to be interested in music in order to want to buy my magazine. The readers of my magazine will like to listen to music and read magazines to help them distress after a full day at work. They may also venture out with their friends to the local coffee shop or go to the local music shop to buy the latest Artic Monkeys CD. The audience of my magazine will most likely not attended music festivals such as Reading or Wireless as they are typically seen to attract young adults from the ages of 16-19. Furthermore, the typical individual of my audience uses social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to communicate and socialise with their friends and the media. They will also use social networking to find out new information on their favourite artists and bands.

Q5) How did you attract/address your audience? The main way in which I attracted my audience was through the Uses and Gratifications Theory. This theory concentrates on the understanding of mass communication and focuses on how audiences watch/consume media on a daily basis. The theory first originated in 1940s by the theorists Blumler and Katz. In 1959, Katz said The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking what people do with media rather than what media does to people. This suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. The statement also concludes that the audience uses media to meet their needs and to fulfil special gratifications. The theory is divided up into 4 separate sections, which include: Information

- This involves finding out relevant events and conditions in immediate surroundings, society and the world. Personal Identity -This involves the reader finding models of behaviour so they can develop their own status and one self Integration and Social Interaction -This involves the reader gaining insight into circumstances of others, for example social empathy Entertainment - This involves the reader getting intrinsic cultural or aesthetic enjoyment from reading. Information My magazine contains a large amount of information to attract the audience and notify them on different events and conditions surrounding the music industry. As my magazine is from the genre of pop/rock, readers of my magazine will typically be fans of both genres of music and will therefore want to read a magazine that keeps them up to date with the activities of the pop/rock artists which include events such as concerts and award shows. The audience would also expect information on new albums and singles from these specific artists. I have displayed these in my magazine which help to attract my target audience of men and women from the age group of 20-34 who like listening to pop/rock music. Personal Identity I chose this specific model to star in my magazine as I believe her blonde hair and blue eyes which contrast with her pale skin help reflect the models beauty, reinforcing the male gender of the audience for my magazine. The majority of my photos include an image of my model giving direct eye contact towards the camera which I believe is important as it draws the readers attention in and allows them to feel a person connection with the artist. The clothing of my model is very particular to suit the stereotypical clothing of my target audience. This will help them to create a personal identity as they may have similar interests in the style of clothing. They will also be able to create a personal identity from reading my magazine as they will be able to pick up similar interests and hobbies that relate to the artists featured in my magazine. This is important as this can make them find out more about themselves. Integration and Social Interaction When designing my magazine I thought it was important to include social media within my magazine as the frequency of my magazine is monthly resulting in readers having to wait till next month for all the latest information on their favourite artists and bands. Including social media will engage readers and give them the chance to find out all the latest updates and information quicker than waiting for the next magazine edition. Furthermore, having these sites contacts the reader from a personal level and makes them feel more involved and connected to the magazine. They will also have the opportunity to interact with other readers of my magazine through these social media websites,

reinforcing the section integration and social interaction from the users and gratifications theory. I have also included a selection of different social media websites for my magazine ranging from Twitter to Facebook and YouTube to Instagram to appeal to my target audience. Furthermore at the bottom of every page displayed in my magazine I have included the main website page for my magazine explaining to readers that they can also access a copy of my magazine online as well as from a print based format. This suits my target audience of men and women from the ages of 20-34 as the majority of them will have access to internet and will perhaps find the magazine website address more helpful and beneficial as they perhaps dont have the time to go to their local supermarket and buy the latest edition of TMM magazine. Entertainment Finally, my magazine attracts my audience though entertainment. On the contents page of my magazine I have included a number of different pages which have the purpose to entertain. For example, I have included a competition page. This would encourage readers to want to buy my magazine as a competition is considered to be fun thing to do. Also, by including competitions in my magazine enables the audience to be able to enjoy reading the magazine as these are perhaps activities they do in their free time to relax. This is particularly important for my audience as they stereotypically work full time and would therefore want to read a magazine that would be stress free and save them from their busy lives. Furthermore the readers would be entertained to read articles about their favourite artists as they would want to find out more about them. Q6) What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product? Throughout this project, I have learnt to use and develop my skills through a variation of different programs and softwares including Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, Scribd, Slideshare, Blogger, Prezi as well as using a SLR camera to develop my photography skills and produce creative images. Adobe InDesign played a key role in the construction of my magazine as the programme helped me to form the base of my magazine. At first, I found this programme hard and complicated to use as I had never used this software before but after receiving a little bit of help from my teacher and looking at tutorials on YouTube I soon became familiar with the basics of the programme. I found the programme to be beneficial to my magazine as the software gave me a selection of tools I could select from to alter different sections of my magazine. I found the text wrap tool to be very useful as it let the text wrap round the selected object, text frame and imported image without making drastic changes to the design of my page. This enabled me to save time as the tool was very easily manageable, making it much easier for me to fit the text and picture together without changing the size and shape of the picture or text by hand. I also found the tool paragraph styles to be very helpful as it allowed me to use a specific text size, font and colour when needed. I found this tool to be convenient when creating my contents page as it made it much easier and quicker for me to create headings and subheadings without having to waste time searching for the right font style of size for each individual title. Furthermore, the main tool I used throughout my magazine was swatches. The tool enabled me to change the colour of textboxes, headings, subheadings and text easily without having to look for the right shade of colours and wasting time. The swatches tool was effective as it included the colours of my house style - red, black and white. This was very helpful as I could easily click the swatch colour tool without having to use the colour wheel to find the right

shade of colour. Overall, the different tools I used in Adobe InDesign helped me to create a professional finish looking magazine. The software Adobe Photoshop also helped me to create my magazine. I used this software to edit pictures as the programme included a selection of different tools to help edit each photo with. I primarily used the burn tool on close up shots of my model to make her features seem darker and stand out more. I applied the tool to the models eyes to emphasise on the smoky eye look and her lips to make her lipstick seem more classy and elegant. I also used the spot healing brush tool which helped me to produce a smooth effect on the model's face covering all crease lines and spots. I also used the liquefy filter which lets you push, pull, rotate, reflect, pucker, and bloat any area of an image. I mainly used this tool on the models lips to make them seem bigger attracting the audiences attention and making them stand out among other features. I found the quick mask mode most helpful as this tool enabled me to remove the white studio background in a neat manner. At first I found the mask mode tool a little difficult and hard to manage but after the help of my teacher I soon became familiar with the different steps I needed to take in order to effectively remove the background this included me highlighting the outline of the photo and then shading in the parts that I wanted to keep before deleting the white background behind. Overall, I believe these improvements I made on Photoshop suit my target audience as men are typically attracted by beauty. The bold and vibrant features would help catch their attention and perhaps persuade them to buy my magazine. After receiving feedback from my peers and teacher I decided to do another photo shoot on the school stage. I set up high quality lights in the background to set up the stage and make it look like my model was part of her own live concert. I also used online programmes such as scribd, slideshare and blogger to present my work. I found the programmes Scribd and Slideshare to be most useful as they enabled me to upload Microsoft word and PowerPoint publications and embed them on my blog. The programmes allowed me to share my work with others and create a neat, straight-forward presentation. Although I had not used these selected programmes before I found the process very easy and stress-free. I also used the software Prezi which is a cloud-based presentation software tool used for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas. I mainly used this program for the planning and research stage of my magazine to create artistic publications. The program was very helpful as it enabled me to easily return back to the software if I made a mistake or needed to edit it. Furthermore, the software would automatically save after the changes you make, making it easier for me without having to worry about forgetting to save the presentation. I also used the website Dafont.com for creating my magazine as the website includes a variety of different fonts ranging from stencils to graffiti and calligraphy to decorative writing. I downloaded selected fonts which I believed were appropriate for the design of my magazine and then used the different fonts for my masthead, sell lines and main titles. I believe the different fonts help make my magazine look more professional and realistic. Finally, the main program I used was blogger. The website enabled me to place all my work online so other students and teachers could access the work I had completed. I found this website very useful as if I was unsure of what to do I would look at my peers work and see the different presentations that I needed to completed. At first, I found this website very confusing and hard to work as I had never taken media before but after learning the basics of the program I soon became familiar on how to post different presentations. Overall, I believe the different programs and software I used helped create a diverse within my work and provided me with a lot more knowledge than if I had kept all my presentation on one print based program such as Microsoft word or PowerPoint.

Q7) Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Since completing my magazine I believe I have learnt more about the different softwares and have developed my skills further in the programmes Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. At the beginning of the academic year when I was working on my preliminary task, I found it hard to demonstrate my skills as I had never used the programmes before and so was unfamiliar with the different tools and buttons I could include to make my magazine look sophisticated and professional. For the preliminary task, I only completed a rough sketch of how I wanted the cover and contents page of my school magazine to look like whereas for the real product I completed several different documents that contributed to the planning and research stage of my magazine. I found this to be very helpful as it gave me a clear idea of the different components I needed to include in my magazine to suit the genre and audience of my magazine. I believe these stages helped me to develop my skills to make my current magazine look professional. Looking back at the preliminary task, I noticed I used a similar layout to my final product. For example, the front cover of the school magazine I created includes a full bleed image with sell lines placed around the image as well as the masthead at the top of the page written in bold letters to appeal to the reader. For the preliminary task I involved the caption the top selling school magazine for Haydon, alike the preliminary task for my final product I Included the caption the uks favourite top selling magazine. On the other hand, there are some features that I changed since the preliminary task including the colour scheme. For my school magazine I used the colour scheme dark blue/purple and black as I believed these colours were relevant for the genre of the magazine and suited the logo of Haydon School. However, for the final product I included the colour scheme of red, white and black to emphasise the genre of pop/rock music and to appeal to the dual gender. I believe the change in colours benefitted my magazine and enhanced the quality of and professionalism of my final product.